


Between Dark and Dawn

by tobiume



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Parent/Child Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 15:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3574501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobiume/pseuds/tobiume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cersei visits Joffrey on the morning of his wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between Dark and Dawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HarmonicFriction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarmonicFriction/gifts).



Between Dark and Dawn

* * *

 

Dawn is not quite near, and the sky is still black as pitch, but Cersei needs no light to find her firstborn son’s bedchamber. She creeps through the halls like a shadow, giving a curt nod to any guard she passes. For a few short hours, she is still the queen, and none may question her.

Fury builds in her breast; it rests with her, these days, a coiled serpent, waiting patiently for the time to strike. Why could Joff not have kept the Stark girl? She knows the wisdom in the plan; without the Tyrells, they’d be long dead, ashes or worse. Yet Sansa was sweet and biddable, without any progressive ideas about dipping into the fast-dwindling treasury to feed and clothe the poor. The Tyrell slut would waste as much money on that as Robert had on whores, if someone didn’t stop her. Sansa, though, she was nothing more than a pretty idiot, which Cersei had planned to use to her advantage. Too afraid of the taint of treason hanging above her head to question much, she would have given Joff several beautiful children before growing fat and placid and losing his interest. She would have no interest in ruling. Sansa was like her mother, concerned with hearth and home and children and naught else.

But Margaery, now, Margaery was dangerous. She was no more maiden than Cersei had been when she wed Robert, and her sweet smiles and wide brown eyes hid calculation and great intelligence. Margaery was not only clever, she was patient. She would have no trouble seizing power from Joff, and blinded as he was by her dubious charms, he would not even see it happening.

“Let me in,” Cersei demands of the knight outside Joff’s door.

“His Grace is sleeping.”

“I know His Grace is sleeping. It’s the middle of the night. But I am the queen, and I have commanded you to let me in,” she hisses.

He steps away from the door and opens it. Cersei steps lightly across the floor, gathering her skirts in her fingers. Even a whisper of velvet on stone might wake him. As a child, Joff was a light sleeper, always waking in tears and reaching for her. Robert grumbled about it, complaining that she shouldn't cosset him so, but she spent many nights soothing Joff back to sleep, drifting off with him in her arms. When he ceased to call for her, some piece of her heart had shriveled. Children always need their mothers, but it is painful when they begin to believe they no longer do.

She reaches his bedside without waking him. He is on his back, limbs askew, and his mouth is open, though he breathes silently. The moon is setting, but its last light spills in, gleaming on Joff’s curls. He is beautiful, and so like Jaime. She longs to reach across and brush the golden locks from his brow, but she does not wish to wake him, not yet. Instead she thinks of a night long ago, the night she believes Joff was conceived. Jaime slept much like this, and Cersei had woken very near this hour, ever mindful of when he must be sent away so that the servant who came to build the fire would not see him. But rather than wake him, she had been content to watch him, sated, generous with love, pleased with her status and power.

She had hoped Joff would be a twin, would be born with a beautiful sister who he, in time, would grow to love. But as he grew she was selfishly pleased that he had been born alone, that she would have to compete with no one for his love. Cersei had been satisfied that Sansa would have garnered no more than fondness from Joff, as silly as she was. She didn’t have the power to hold the attention of someone like Joff. But the Tyrell girl was different. And tomorrow, she would be Joff’s bride, and she would begin to sink her thorns into Joff, wrapping slowly and twisting until her Joff was completely overrun. Her sweet smiles send rage coursing through Cersei, making her fingertips itch with a desire to slap her face.

She has considered orchestrating an accident but fears the questions would be many. The Tyrells are too powerful, and it pains Cersei to admit it, but the throne needs their gold, their armies. Before dying, Robert managed to drain the royal coffers with his whores and tourneys, and the realm is precariously close to bankruptcy. But once the Tyrells have repaired the shortage and won over the peasants, when Margaery has produced an heir or two, then something may be arranged, perhaps. Then Joff will be hers again.

Joff sighs in his sleep and turns, and Cersei presses her hand to her heart. She will lose him forever. He is already turning from her, secure in his power as king. She could advise him and guide him, if only he would allow her. She leans over him and reaches out, holding back from touching him. Will he allow Margaery to share his bed most evenings? Or will he send her away after bedding her? Cersei dreads the thought that she may no longer be able to creep in and see her son when she wishes to. She sees him in court and at meals, but he is much preoccupied these days and does not wish to speak.

Though they do not speak now, in these quiet moments between dark and dawn, she feels closer to him. Cersei allows her fingertips to drift against Joff’s cheek. When he does not stir, she lets them lie there. Her boy has become a man. He has long been one, in truth, but she does not like to let him go. Joff is all she has now.

He moves in his sleep again, and his hand comes up to clutch Cersei’s, his strong grip clenching her fingers together. “Mother,” he says. “You’re here. I had hoped you would come.”

“Yes, I’m here, of course I’m here.” Cersei strokes his cheek with her finger as he relaxes his grip on her other hand.

“I’m pleased. But this must be the last time,” Joff says. His voice is strong, as a king’s should be, but Cersei can hear a yielding in it.

“Of course,” she murmurs, leaning over him, her golden hair a curtain across their faces. She knows that this will not be the last time.


End file.
